May 17/10 14:15 pm - Tour de l'Aude: Stage 3

Posted by Editoress on 05/17/10

HTC-Columbia's Ina-Yoko Teutenberg battled through galeforce winds on stage three of the Tour de L'Aude in France to take her twelfth triumph of the season and nineteenth career victory in the race, while teammate Adrie Visser remains in the overall lead.

"I was actually pretty annoyed before the stage started because I'd ridden a poor team time trial the day before, and so I worked hard to forge an early break with three other riders," Teutenberg said later. "The only problem was it was really windy today. It was blowing at maybe 50 or 60 kmh and we were riding mostly into a headwind. It was crazy. Normally you get one windy day in the Tour de L'Aude, but this time it just hasn't stopped and this was the worst of the race so far."

Teutenberg said the break had survived because of strong collaboration, but that it had been a very tough struggle with their advantage at a bare minimum at the finish."Cervélo were working very hard behind and after losing one person from the break, we reached the finish with only about 20 seconds on the bunch. It wasn't much of a gap but we kept working together and we were totally exhausted when it was over. The final sprint was really close at first, but I was able to put some distance between me and the rest of the break at the end. It really made up for what had happened the day before."

Teutenberg's win was her nineteenth in the Tour de L'Aude, reinforcing her position as the rider with the greatest number of stage victories ever in the prestigious French race. "It was a really hard day," added Teutenberg's HTC-Columbia team-mate Adrie Visser, "but this is my first ever lead in a stage race and it's really nice to look down and see I'm wearing a yellow jersey. The stage had a really tough start, and later on Cervélo started to chase. But I had a good spot in the bunch and I could hold on ok. Tomorrow [Tuesday] is a lot more mountainous and we're more here for stage wins than winning the overall, but I won't let go of the lead without a fight. Whatever happens I won't forget leading this race, either."

Teutenberg's victory is the third for HTC-Columbia in less than 24 hours, following Mark Cavendish's win in the first stage of the Tour of California and Matt Goss's victory in the Giro d'Italia.